ran across the bottom of the holoproj. An Atlanta policeman had been murdered during a traffic stop. Shot twice in the face by a man who had escaped in what turned out to be a rental car. The suspect was still at large.
Toni shook her head. Life in the big city. She wondered if the dead policeman had any family. A wife, children who would never know their father? So awful. As well-trained as she was as a fighter, she knew it didn’t make you bulletproof. Some loon with a gun could take it all away in an instant.
She remembered Steve Day. And the times when both she and Alex had come close to being killed. They had a child now. They shouldn’t be putting themselves in that situation anymore.
Something tugged at her memory. Something about the dead cop…
She read over the story again, but the details were sparse. Witnesses had heard the shots, seen a man jump in a car and drive off, but there was no good description of him. It had been dark, it had all happened so fast…
Toni was about to move on to other things on her agenda when she noticed a reference to the caliber of the gun used on the dead cop. It had been a.22 Long Rifle, and the investigators suspected it had come from a short- barreled handgun.
Hmm. Hadn’t there been another cop shot recently with a.22 somewhere not that far from here?
Her voxax circuit was open. Toni said, “Search: Shootings-slash-twenty-two-caliber-slash-time-frame-slash- two-weeks.”
As the searchbot’s screen popped up, she realized she should have narrowed the parameters to include “police officers.” Well, she’d see what came back, and narrow it if she needed to.
Apparently there had been more than two dozen such shootings in the country in the last fourteen days, including Arlo Wentworth, a United States Democratic congressman from California, and wasn’t that another awful note? There had been three incidents on the east coast, and one of them was indeed what she’d remembered, a policeman in Baltimore. And here was an armed guard, in Dover…
And somebody was also shot in a bar in Atlanta, same night as the cop down there had been.
Hmm.
Toni frowned. Surely if there had been any connection between the cops, the ballistics boys would have caught that.
Curious, Toni put in a call to the Net Force shooting range.
“Shooting range,” came Gunny’s voice.
“Sergeant, this is Toni Michaels.”
“Yes, ma’am. What can I do for you?”
“Answer a couple of questions.”
“Shoot. So to speak.”
“I was looking at CopNet’s LEO bulletins and saw that there have been some police shootings on the east coast recently.”
“Yes, ma’am. Baltimore and Atlanta.”
“You know about them.”
“Yes, ma’am. I keep track of LEOs who are getting shot, and with what. Professional interest.”
“My question is, how unusual is this?”
“Cops getting shot, or getting shot with mouse guns?”
“Both, I guess.”
“Not many get killed in the line of duty each year, but some do. And.22 is the most common caliber for civilian firearms. Probably followed by 12-gauge or.410 bore shotguns, deer rifles, 38 Specials, 25 autos, like that. A.22 isn’t a very good man-stopper, though, even out of a rifle, and these were all handgun shootings.”
“How do you know that?”
“MEs can usually tell by penetration. A twenty-two solid point out of a rifle is moving two, three hundred feet a second faster than one coming out of a short-barreled handgun. From a long barrel they sometimes punch right on through.”
“So you are saying these shootings are not that rare?”
“No, ma’am, I’m not exactly saying that. These particular shootings? They aren’t normal. The Baltimore cop, a security guard in Delaware, a congressman out in California, and the Atlanta motorcycle patrolman? They were all shot in the head.”
“Ah. And that is unusual?”
“Yes, ma’am. If you were going to shoot somebody with a.22, a head shot would be the way to go, and more than one round. If I’m not mistaken, all of these guys were hit at least twice. My guess? Same guy did them all.”
Toni blinked, taking that in. “Really?”
“Yes, ma’am. I have a friend in ballistics over at the regular feeb-shop. The cop in Baltimore? He was hit twice by two different guns. According to the forensics wound-angle stuff, they are pretty sure the bullets hit him at about the same time, and from the same height and distance. That tells me you either got shooters standing side by side and aiming for the same spot, or one guy with two guns.”
Toni nodded. “Go on. Please.”
“Yes, ma’am. Ballistics on the congressman say both rounds in him came from the same gun, two head shots, from inside five feet — there were powder speckles on the car and dead guy. The security guy in Delaware caught a bunch of rounds, in the body and neck, only one in the head, but that’s probably because the shooter started cooking and walked them up to be sure. Probably too far away to be certain of a head shot right off. All of those wounds were from the same gun.”
“And the Atlanta cop?”
“Nothing in on him yet, but if the shooter was the same guy who opened up in a bar forty-five minutes earlier, and it looks like he was, he was using a snub-nosed revolver.”
“There were witnesses?”
Gunny laughed. “A whole bar full of bikers, but none of them saw a thing. There was a security cam installed there. Atlanta PD is going over that recording with a microscope right now.”
“So what do you think?”
“Well, the revolver fits with the other shootings. The guy didn’t leave any used brass, for one thing, which implies it was a revolver. Of course, he could have hunted it up and collected it, if he’d been using a semiauto, but the two cops and the guard were done at night. Brass from a.22 flies a long way, and it would be very hard finding it all in the dark. At the Atlanta shooting, people looked out and saw a car pulling away right after the shots were fired. Not much chance of him stopping to hunt for expended shells. A revolver makes more sense.”
“Hmm.”
“Another thing. I think we’re dealing with a sportsman here.”
“Excuse me?”
“All the dead guys? They all had guns. And they had all cleared the decks when they got hit, all had hands on their weapons. I think we’re talking about a hunter. He only shoots people who can shoot back. Most-dangerous- game kind of guy.”
“Lord. Does the FBI think this?”
“I’d bet big money they’ve considered it, ma’am. They got some pretty swift folks over there.”
“Thank you, Gunny.”
After she hung up, Toni sat staring at the computer screen. It wasn’t her job to find the shooter or shooters who’d done this. But it did pique her interest. She knew some people over at the regular shop. Maybe she could get a copy of the tape showing the shooter?
It wouldn’t hurt to look at it.
34
Jay was working at his desk when Toni stuck her head into his office.
“Hey, Jay. You got a minute?”
“Always,” he said. “What’s up?”
